[20/11/2014][0.25] FTmN Atomic Rockets

[The Space Man]

Recolored engines Blue.

[landeTLS]

Recolored engines Blue.

http://i.imgur.com/iHg8SnI.jpg

Nice. I recolored mine black(red and green details in different shades and darkened the grey parts a bit) to go with chacamonkey parts but blue looks good too!

[kiwiak]

If woudl be cool if we coudl run these in two modes, just like thermal nozzles from interstellar, pure liquid mode - low thrust, hight isp, and ox + lq mode, opposite.

And third mode, kethane, both low thrust and isp but thanks to that you dont need to put regular fuel tank and conventer on your kethane miner, just burn what you mine.

[Borklund]

Kommitz, really like your work, this mod is a staple of any new campaign of mine.

Question/request: Would you care to make a special nuclear-friendly bi/tri/quadcoupler adapter system similar in look to NASA's DRA 5.0 NTR vehicle concept? A special decoupler (with or without fairing module, or separate fairing part instead) and bi/tri/quadcoupler part scaled for 1.25m and 2.5m?

Thanks!

[MonkeyLunch]

Can you make 3.75 and a 5m version engine? And before you mention using engine clusters, they wont do. Decouplers are a pain because they size off the engine base, not the fuel tank you are using. So that means using fairings and a bunch of parts I don't want to use, to make it fit. So I basically never use clusters. And its why im asking for the larger version engines. Even if you just make bigger bases, the engines themselves don't need to be bigger. All the mods suffer from this problem. There are few engines for those larger size fuel tanks, and people always say use clusters when you ask for larger engine sizes. All the engines should come with a base in every size diameter, so you can use it on all sizes of tanks. Or make an adjustable base, or something.

I would say that this is the main problem I run into building rockets, finding engines with a base that fits the tank, and is the right power. Squad really should change how decouplers work, so they size themselves off the fuel tank not the engine base. Then clusters would be easy to use.

edit: I forgot to say please, and thanks

PS: Great mod, I really like the look of your engines.

Edited January 26, 2014 by MonkeyLunch
addition

[wasmic]

Can you make 3.75 and a 5m version engine? And before you mention using engine clusters, they wont do. Decouplers are a pain because they size off the engine base, not the fuel tank you are using. So that means using fairings and a bunch of parts I don't want to use, to make it fit. So I basically never use clusters. And its why im asking for the larger version engines. Even if you just make bigger bases, the engines themselves don't need to be bigger. All the mods suffer from this problem. There are few engines for those larger size fuel tanks, and people always say use clusters when you ask for larger engine sizes. All the engines should come with a base in every size diameter, so you can use it on all sizes of tanks. Or make an adjustable base, or something.

I would say that this is the main problem I run into building rockets, finding engines with a base that fits the tank, and is the right power. Squad really should change how decouplers work, so they size themselves off the fuel tank not the engine base. Then clusters would be easy to use.

edit: I forgot to say please, and thanks

PS: Great mod, I really like the look of your engines.

You can make an engine fairing with Procedural Fairings. And squad can't just change how the decoupler fairings work. Why? Because they're created from the engines, not the decouplers. Changing this would involve placing a decoupler on a node placed some distance under a tank, which then creates a fairing, and then placing an egnine cluster inside. This would also be wonky, as fairins would now have a set legth, and long engines might not fit, and small engines would look awkward with so much empty space. The easiest thing to do is to use Procedural Fairings, unless Kommitz is willing to redo the engines completely. Why would he have to redo them completely, you ask? Well, to avoid making 12 new engines (every combination of baseplate and engine, not counting those already made and the ones where the baseplate would be too small for the engines), he'd have to create five base-plate parts, and remove the baseplates from the engines. Since the baseplates are baked into the engines, he'd have to do some drastic changes to the engine models, and a re-export.

TL;DR, install procedural fairings, problem solved.

[Surefoot]

TL;DR, install procedural fairings, problem solved.

Not totally true: this doesnt replace 3.75m and 5m engines (which would have scaled properties from the current 2.5m series, with further weight of course). Why would i want those, that's my own business, and i'll ask you: why not

[Kommitz]

Recolored engines Blue.

Ah, I really like blue. Nice recoulour.

Also:

Decouplers & large engines

I'm working on a 3.75m engine now roughly based off the NERVA 2 design, should fit in nicely with a matching texture job. Won't be out for ages though as I've got other priorities.

In the meantime, I'll do some multiple engine adapters with built in fairings. A while back I posted a wee video of a prototype I made months ago, so i just went with that idea and polished it off a bit, mostly keeping it similar to the stock multi-couplers:

(I don't ever use 5m parts, please don't mind the super-junky test rig)

A more spaced out engine design like that NASA image isn't really feasible sine my FTmNs a bit, err, fat. And a cluster of the FTmN 40s is a bit redundant.

[Gaius]

Awesome, I can't wait!

[MonkeyLunch]

Cool, that will work just fine. Anything that helps reduce part count works for me

Thanks!

[frizzank]

Just wanted to say I always liked your rockets. Great job keeping things in the kerbal style.

[BFGfreak]

If you don't mind me asking, have you ever gotten around to releasing the trusses you showed off earlier?

http://i.imgur.com/fX6vZZC.jpg?1

[Kommitz]

If you don't mind me asking, have you ever gotten around to releasing the trusses you showed off earlier?

Here they are!

I'm very indecisive when it comes to making things so I almost completely re-did the mesh since showing them off, which is why I didn't release them earlier.

Just wanted to say I always liked your rockets. Great job keeping things in the kerbal style.

Thanks, I'm a fan of FASA too fwiw.

[nubcaker]

Been waiting a while for the trusses, thank you!

[Mekan1k]

Any chance that your engines will be using the Hotrockets mod?

[kiwiak]

I noticed somethng strange about these engines. Instead normal exhaust, some read sphere appears behind their nozzles.

[wasmic]

I noticed somethng strange about these engines. Instead normal exhaust, some read sphere appears behind their nozzles.

That's because of a bug, or because your computer runs slowly, or whatever. Anyway, Kommitz recently added custom exhaust effects, but sometimes, they only show up as red-orange spheres instead of a red-orange gas stream.

[DaMichel]

Thanks for the engines. I used them for my Duna mission

Any chance you could make the exhaust more like in this mockup? http://i.imgur.com/LrjEluh.jpg

[pingopete]

Does anyone have a config for RF compatibility? It's pretty difficult guessing by hand the ratios of LF to Oxidizer needed for the engines :/

[Shad0wCatcher]

it's 45% LF to 55% Oxidizer. Though in all honesty these things *should* have Hydrolox, LH2, MethaLOX, Liquid Methane, and Ammonia as available fuels. I may have to look into it at some point; but I've never dived into the RF configs before to see how they work with regards to thrust and ISP changes due to fuel differences.

[pingopete]

it's 45% LF to 55% Oxidizer. Though in all honesty these things *should* have Hydrolox, LH2, MethaLOX, Liquid Methane, and Ammonia as available fuels. I may have to look into it at some point; but I've never dived into the RF configs before to see how they work with regards to thrust and ISP changes due to fuel differences.

ok thanks. yeah I've done it once or twice but it can take quite some time to figure it all out and I'm hardly experienced

[Starwaster]

it's 45% LF to 55% Oxidizer. Though in all honesty these things *should* have Hydrolox, LH2, MethaLOX, Liquid Methane, and Ammonia as available fuels. I may have to look into it at some point; but I've never dived into the RF configs before to see how they work with regards to thrust and ISP changes due to fuel differences.

I recommend looking at the Squad NTR file in the Real Fuels configs. (there's several configs I forget which set it's in though)

REQUIRES Real Fuels but it's very easy to adapt. could copy the config to another file being sure to change the part name (says @PART[<something>] to whatever the name is of the rocket you're modifying). Change base thrust level and ISP accordingly.

Has configs for LH2, CH4, NH3 and.... I think H2O. Though the H2O resource might be missing. But the engine is configured.

[Kommitz]

I'm balancing some stats that are more Methane-NTR styled at the moment, but I want to wait until my next new engine before I re-stat them all and release.

I noticed somethng strange about these engines. Instead normal exhaust, some read sphere appears behind their nozzles.

That's because of a bug, or because your computer runs slowly, or whatever. Anyway, Kommitz recently added custom exhaust effects, but sometimes, they only show up as red-orange spheres instead of a red-orange gas stream.

Try updating your pack, the new particles are much more dense so should look better on slower machines. The issue before was (I think...) that there were too few particles that spawned for too short a time.

Any chance you could make the exhaust more like in this mockup?

Not yet...(...but there may be a plugin coming along that could enable effects more like that. Later though.)

Anyway, bump for the latest update. Changed the particle effects and a couple of textures (very slightly).

Edited February 23, 2014 by Kommitz

[LameLefty]

Thank you for the little update and the denser particle effects! My 3 year old MacBook Pro appreciates it very much.

[likke_A_boss]

Woah, woah, the lasted update broke my save. There used to be a 2.5 meter toridal fuel tank included right? Or am I on the wrong mod? Plus, I liked those tanks a lot….

Edited February 24, 2014 by likke_A_boss